Wednesday, July 29, 2009

"We don't have an air conditioner" is the new "We don't have a television."

It used to bug me when I'd be recounting the latest installment of ANTM over lunch and some coworker would be all, "Oh, I'm sorry I've never seen that show. We don't have TV." And I'd roll my eyes waaayyyy back into my head and think, "Hoho, you're just so ABOVE the whole television thing and the rest of us are just vapid slaves to the media! Well, have fun with your BOOK and your Meuslix, sucka. I'll be over here weeping with Oprah."

And then I moved to New York and sold my TiVo and never got around to hooking up the cable. Now I'm the coworker who doesn't get the Real Housewives of New Jersey in-jokes and the SYTYCD hysteria.

But then today I was talking to someone about how I couldn't wait to turn my A/C(s) on when I got home and she said, "Oh, we just open a window and use a big fan." I felt the familiar heat rise up within me (an internal, defensive heat, not the actual ambient temperature, which incidentally was also SIZZLING HOT) and I screamed, "JUST OPEN A WINDOW? Use a big fan? Do you also put Neosporin on a broken leg?"

Oh, who am I kidding, I didn't scream. I think I muttered something about being hot-blooded and having an apartment with poor air circulation. Because in much the same way that I know Oprah and I will be reunited someday, I also know that one of these nights, while My Mister and I are sleeping like angels in our climate-controlled paradise, that smug girl is going to throw the covers off her bed, take off all of her clothes, and stand in front of her big fan while she scans CraigsList for a used air conditioner. But you know what? There won't be any! Because I bought them all.

Okay- so I found your blog through Brecken's and I'm going to have to start blog stalking you because I'm already addicted after reading the last few posts.

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to find someone else as attached to A/C as we are- we're sick to death of trying to figure out how everyone survives in this city by opening their tiny little windows and using an itty bitty fan to push around the hot, humid, dirty air that seeps in from the noisy street.

So instead of feeling lame that we just don't have what it takes to be "real" New Yorkers, we keep our TWO A/C's at a balmy 71 all day long, and crank them down to 68 at night so we can snuggle up under our down comforter just for spite- ha!